Titanium Rivets On Aircraft Carriers Are So Expensive: They Could Replace An Audi

A rivet costs at least 100,000 yuan, and not every country has the ability to process it. If you rely on imports, the price will be even higher. The rivet is made of titanium alloy, which is considered a rare metal because it is dispersed in nature and difficult to extract. It is characterized by light weight and high strength, has a metallic luster, and also has good corrosion resistance (including seawater, aqua regia and chlorine). Because of its stable chemical properties, good resistance to high and low temperatures, strong acids and bases, as well as high strength and low density, it is known as the "space metal".

In fact, the rivets on the aircraft carrier are not all valuable, in China, worth 1 million yuan. But foreign titanium rivets are very valuable, Audi's much cheaper. But the value of Audi rivets is there, the price of rivets is used in the aircraft carrier on the vertical take-off and landing function, because these rivets have to withstand from the vertical take-off and landing aircraft take-off as high as 1,000 degrees of high-temperature flames.

Titanium rivets are really expensive to process. The international price of titanium is $28 per kilogram, or about $90 per kilogram. The recycling price of titanium scrap is about $50 per kilogram.

Titanium products are not sold as expensive because it is a valuable material. The most expensive titanium alloy sold on the metal materials market does not exceed $600 per kilogram. Titanium alloy products sell because they are very expensive to machine. Titanium alloy material is one of the most difficult materials to machine in the machining industry. Its processing cost is several to many times its material value. Simply give you one of the characteristics of titanium alloys and you can see how difficult it is to machine. Low thermal conductivity, which means slow heat transfer. If heat transfer is slow, heat can build up locally and easily burn the tool. Therefore, in order not to generate a lot of heat, the cutting tool cuts slowly, resulting in longer machining times. In order to improve the machining efficiency of titanium alloys, some large factories use liquid nitrogen for machining cooling. In addition, when machining tiny particles of titanium alloy, a temperature of about 200 degrees will burn if cooling is not good. Workpiece processing creates a risk of fire, and processing costs naturally increase.